Kolkata: A snake scare gripped employees at the headquarters of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Wednesday afternoon when a snake sneaked into a ground-floor room at the civic body's printing press department. Around 10 am, when employees were entering the office, a security guard on duty at the department spotted the reptile and raised an alarm. The guard went to the caretaker's room and warned him about the presence of the snake under a table.
After vacating the room and locking it, KMC officials informed the state forest department, which then sent a team to catch the snake. The team reached the office at 11 am and caught the reptile.
According to Dipankar Das, the security guard who first spotted the snake, he said it gave him a big fright and he ran out of the room.
This is not the first time that the civic employees were shaken by a snake scare. Panic spread through the civic corridors after a snake was spotted inside the headquarters building for two consecutive days last Nov. It was first seen in the chamber of deputy mayor Atin Ghosh and again spotted in the balcony area near the Councillors' Club room. Two consecutive days of snake sightings left employees and officials unnerved. But in both cases, a swift response from the forest department saved the day for civic employees. A team of forest officials from Alipore zoo arrived with specialised equipment, including hooks and tongs, to locate and safely capture the snakes.